Runs

A Run is an on-demand agent job that fires once. You write a prompt, the coordinator spins up a DevBox and gets to work, and — unlike a Schedule — you can watch its timeline, steer it, and answer its questions as it goes.

Tip

Ready to try one? The Run an agent on demand guide has copy-paste recipes (take a ticket to a PR, delegate across engines, fix a bug). This page explains how Runs work.

Starting a Run

From the orchestrator’s Runs page, + New run opens the composer:

1. Instructions — what you want done (Markdown supported). This is the only required field.

2. Ticket URL (optional) — paste a GitHub/Azure issue and the launch step resolves its repo/branch, clones it, and readies the issue context inside the DevBox.

3. Target (optional) — pin a worker or cloud worker, or leave it blank — the agent will ask you to pick a host (and image) the moment it needs to launch.

4. Engine — which engine runs the task, or auto-detect to use the best available CLI on the image.

5. Mode — Interactive (default) or Autonomous (see below).

6. Start Run — the coordinator launches a DevBox and begins.

Interactive or autonomous

A Run can fire in one of two modes:

• Interactive (default) — a human is watching. The agent can pause and ask you a question, and you can steer it. This is everything described on this page.
• Autonomous — fire-and-forget. The Run executes to completion without ever pausing — it’s a Schedule’s body fired once, on demand. There’s no human in the loop, so it never asks a question; if it hits an ambiguity it decides for itself or fails fast with a result.

Because an autonomous Run can’t ask you anything, it must be given a target up front — a worker and an image, or a cloud worker (which auto-picks an image). A “just instructions” autonomous Run with no host is rejected at creation, since it could only fail when it reached the point of needing to ask.

Tip

Use autonomous for a well-specified one-off you don’t want to babysit (and where you’ve pinned the host). Use interactive for anything exploratory, or where you want to watch, steer, or answer the agent.

The timeline — watch it work

Every Run has a live timeline: each step the agent takes appears as it happens, so you can follow exactly what it’s doing instead of waiting for a final summary.

console.clustercode.io Runs

The timeline interleaves the agent’s messages with its tool steps — each one expandable to see the exact call and result:

• launch DevBox — a DevBox is created on the chosen host.
• exec in DevBox — a command runs inside it (tests, a build, gh pr create).
• report job result — the agent finalizes the Run as completed or failed.

The Run details panel alongside it shows the status, engine, started/completed times, duration, the DevBox(s) used, and a one-paragraph summary of everything the Run did. A finished Run can leave its DevBox up so a follow-up continues where it left off.

It can pause and ask you

The headline difference from a Schedule: a Run can pause mid-flight and ask you a question, then resume from exactly where it stopped once you answer. Its status flips to Needs you and the question appears inline.

console.clustercode.io Runs

How questions are asked:

• A choice — single-select (pick one) or multi-select (pick any), each with a recommended default and an “Other → free text” escape.
• Free text — an open-ended answer.
• Several at once — a Run can ask multiple questions in one pause (the example above is the first of three).

This works for any engine you pick — the question comes from the coordinator, not the engine. The DevBox and its session stay alive while paused, so it’s safe to answer minutes — or hours — later.

Note

Questions only happen in Runs. A Schedule is autonomous, so it never asks — it reports a result and finishes.

Steering — the chat

A Run is a conversation. Below the timeline is a chat composer:

• Steer it — type a follow-up instruction while it’s working; it’s delivered at the next turn boundary, so you can redirect without stopping the Run.
• Answer a question — when the status is Needs you, your reply resumes the Run from where it paused.
• Continue a finished Run — if the DevBox is still up, a new message picks the work back up in the same workspace.

console.clustercode.io Runs

Picking an engine

Name an engine when you care which one runs. An interactive brainstorm is a good fit for Claude Code — Plan (it can pause itself mid-task); a tightly-scoped job suits Claude Code — API credits or Codex. See Engines for the full comparison and how each one pauses.

When to use a Run vs a Schedule

• Run — exploratory or ambiguous work, anything you want to watch, steer, or where the agent may need a decision from you.
• Schedule — recurring, well-specified work that needs no supervision.

Next

• Run an agent on demand — copy-paste recipes to try.
• Engines — what each engine can do, and how each pauses.
• Schedules — the recurring, autonomous counterpart.